Ethics? We don’t need no stinkin’ ethics

I used to be a journalist, a profession that observed a certain code of ethics. At least it did at the time. The code wasn’t carved into stone tablets or written down on parchment, but we pretty much knew what it said. I worked for four different newspapers and, frankly, some had higher ethical standards than others, but some general rules always seemed to apply.

For example:

* I would never lie to a source to get a story, even though a lot of sources had no reservations about lying to me. Back then, lying was considered to be a bad thing and not standard operating procedure, like it is today.    

* I tried to avoid favoritism or even the appearance of same. For example, my voter registration was Independent so I wouldn’t be accused of bias toward one political party or another. I also declined opportunities to join any and all organizations because doing so might call my objectivity into question.

* And, there were general rules that applied to everybody. We could go to lunch to interview a source, for example, but we had to pay for our own meal. I used to wonder if my editors thought I could be bought with the price of a Caesar salad, but I understood the concept all the same. On one occasion, a reporter who worked for me was given a coffee mug by a local radio station. We made him give it back.

I’m sure there are many more examples, but suffice to say that’s the way I did my job, and I’m sure you get the point. Within that context, I find it hard to understand how some of our most important and time-honored institutions can operate today without any functional code of ethics, and we as citizens sit back and allow that to be true.

Take Congress, for example. You have a representative from New York who fabricated his entire existence and has been indicted for a number of alleged crimes. Rep. George Santos is facing dozens of federal charges, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States.

He has admitted that he lied about a non-existent real estate portfolio, college degrees he never obtained and claims that he is Jewish, which he is not. In an interview with Piers Morgan, Santos said he fabricated his life story to help him get elected. “I've been a terrible liar on those subjects,” Santos said. There are also questions about contributions that were made during his campaign for office.

The House of Representatives, where Santos is a member, operates under what’s called the Code of Official Conduct, which includes 22 separate sections and 2,858 words, but you only have to read the first sentence of the first section to find a reason why George Santos and his multiple identities should be sent home to New York. It reads as follows: 

A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.

I’m not sure how Santos’s fraudulent actions “reflect creditably on the House,” but apparently they do because despite all of his scandals, he remains a member of the chamber and part of a very slim Republican majority. House leadership shows no willingness to expel Rep. Santos and no adherence to its own ethics rules which, one would think, would frown upon such abhorrent behavior.

The GOP simply needs his vote, so ethics rules be damned.

And that brings me to the U.S. Supreme Court of Appeals. It is beyond all logic and reason that after more than 200 years of existence, the highest court in the land does not have an approved code of ethics, nor does it seem to want one. According to Newsweek, the court is facing a growing list of scandals, most of them involving Justice Clarence Thomas and his acceptance of luxury gifts, trips and perks from wealthy donors with business before the court.

In addition, Justice Neil Gorsuch has come under scrutiny for a real estate deal he closed shortly after becoming a justice. “He disclosed the sale, but omitted that the property was sold to the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one the country's biggest law firms,” Newsweek said. “Greenberg Traurig frequently has cases before the high court.”

Even Chief Justice John Roberts has been tagged with questionable behavior. It seems that his wife works as a legal recruiter, a job for which she reportedly was paid millions of dollars for placing lawyers at firms, including some with business before the Supreme Court. Invited by the Senate Judiciary Committee to attend a hearing to explore the need for Supreme Court ethics reform, Roberts declined, citing “separation of powers” and “the importance of preserving judicial independence.”

He has resisted any and all attempts to apply a Code of Ethics to the high court, which boggles the mind. Why the nation’s final legal arbiter on the Constitution and the law would choose to operate devoid of any rules of ethics is almost too hard to believe. Or maybe it’s not. I mean, if the choice is between ethical restraint and no-holds-barred “judicial independence,” Roberts has made the court’s position abundantly clear. I read “judicial independence” to mean “mind your own business while we do whatever we want.” And life rolls on, unabated.

Of course, there is no better example of a political leader operating outside any code of acceptable behavior than the former president of the United States, who thinks that ethics only apply to losers, suckers, the Radical Left, the woke mob and other people with occasionally functioning brains. I’ve written a lot about him already and have little else to add right now. Let me just say that if he went to lunch with you for an interview, not only would you pay for your own Caesar salad but he’d stick you with the bill for his burger and fries as well.

Let’s write a song (in memory of Jimmy Buffett)

I tried to write a song once. I had strummed out four simple chords on acoustic guitar, and I had chosen a title and a theme. The title was to be “Streetcorner Jesus,” a song about a real guy who used to stand on a street corner in Parkersburg, W.Va., open Bible in hand, preaching to everyone and/or no one in particular.

I wrote:

“Streetcorner Jesus, salvation on demand
Toss some change he’ll save your soul
With the Good Book in his hand.” 
 

Or words to that effect. That’s as far as I got before coming to the stunning conclusion that songwriting is not one of my skills.

Which brings me to Jimmy Buffett. I’m sure everyone knows by now that Jimmy died this week at age 76, ending a career that began in the 1970s and might have continued even longer if cancer hadn’t finally put him down. He wrote, by some estimates, 215 songs, and while I admit I haven’t heard them all, I can say for certain that I never heard one I didn’t like.

By comparison, Wikipedia says the Beatles wrote 213 songs in a recording career that lasted only eight years, and no two of them sounded the same. Likewise for Paul Simon, who just released a new album, bringing his total to around 400, and Bob Dylan’s prolific writing career that produced 600 or more songs.

I have read that the Beatles often entered the studio needing two songs to finish an album. They sat down behind a piano or with acoustic guitars and simply knocked out new material virtually on demand. I have also read that Dylan wrote hundreds more poems or song lyrics that were never recorded, and that some of his songs that did hit vinyl had multiple additional verses that didn’t make the cut.

My point is this: I so admire anybody who can write a song, whether it’s one song or 213 songs or 600 songs or more. I have always considered myself a writer, and I have mastered the writing of newspaper articles, letters, brochures, public relations materials of all kinds, emails, Facebook posts, this blog and even five fiction mystery books. But I cannot write a single song.

I really don’t know why other people can do this, but apparently they possess the ability to create music where there was no music and lyrics where none existed before. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones claims that “Satisfaction” came to him in a dream. Paul McCartney says he was thinking about his mother, Mary, and times of trouble when “Let It Be” flowed through his fingers.

Which brings me back to Jimmy Buffett. I don’t claim to know everything that ever happened to Jimmy in his lifetime, but I saw him in concert four, maybe five times and several more times in videos and on TV, and if there was a happier man on the planet I don’t know who it could be. He sang songs with a smile – both literally and figuratively – and never seemed to tire of performing “Margaritaville” for the nine millionth time … and with the same enthusiasm as the first time he played it live.

His obituary notes that Buffett was a pilot and a sailor who wrote songs about his plane being shot at by Jamaican police (“Jamaica Mistaica”), getting lost in the Sahara Desert (“Buffet Hotel”) and smugglers he had known around the Florida Gulf Coast (“A Pirate Looks at 40”). Although he was best known for upbeat party songs, the obituary says, Buffett first achieved notoriety for thoughtful ballads that showed the influence of Texas songwriters such as Jerry Jeff Walker and Canadian Gordon Lightfoot.

He had another career as an author who once wrote articles for Billboard Magazine, and was one of a handful of writers who had number one best-sellers on both the fiction and non-fiction lists of the New York Times Book Review. As an entrepreneur, he was known for his Margaritaville hotels, restaurants and retirement communities, along with sidelines such as Land Shark beer. Buffett’s branding and business acumen made him one of the most financially successful musicians of all time.

Looking back over his life, if any of us had done but 10 percent of what Buffett accomplished we would have thought our lives had been complete. But his friend, CBS "Sunday Morning" contributor Bill Flanagan, summed up Buffett best: “I don’t think I knew anyone with more positive life force,” Flanagan said. “Everything was an adventure (for Buffett), and if the adventure went sideways, he’d come home with a good story.”

I’m old now and celebrities of my generation have already died, and others will die in the years to come. I can accept that fact, but this one came as a shock. I was a big fan of Jimmy Buffett, a truly talented man and a purveyor of joy for nearly 50 years. RIP, Jimmy. This one really hurts. 

Just how many witches have we been hunting?

This is going to sound a little bit naïve. I want to confess that right up front. But we believe what we believe, regardless, and this is what I believe.

Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, has been impeached twice and indicted four times for something like 91 violations of the law, stemming from – among other crimes – allegedly inciting a coup against the United States government and attempting to throw out the results of a free and fair election based on a lie that he knows is a lie but refuses to admit.

Before we get to that, I want to go back six years to the Mueller investigation – a two-year probe by a special prosecutor appointed to determine if Trump and his associates colluded with Russian intelligence to interfere with (and rig) the 2016 presidential election. The Mueller probe lasted from May 2017 to March 2019 and was repeatedly called a “witch hunt” and “the Russia hoax” by Trump and his ardent followers.

If you’ve forgotten the details, I suggest you google “Mueller Report” and brush up on his findings, but in short, the investigation found evidence that the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it, but that there was insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy to charge members of the campaign. The report suggested but did not reach a conclusion about possible obstruction of justice by Trump, citing a Justice Department guideline that prohibits the federal indictment of a sitting president.

When it was over, then-Attorney General Bill Barr whitewashed the final report before Mueller could issue it, allowing Trump to claim “total vindication” and his followers – in one of history’s greatest “I told you so” moments – to write it off as political grandstanding by the opposition party, even though Mueller is a Republican appointed by a Republican and the witnesses were mainly Republicans.

I mention the Mueller report for a reason. Although I wholeheartedly disagree with Barr’s handling of the report, the dubious DOJ memo that seems to impersonate a law and even Mueller’s failure to follow through on evidence that Trump obstructed justice, I can almost understand how Trump backers could believe that the whole affair was political theater and that the Democrats were simply “out to get” Trump, who did nothing wrong.

I say I can “almost” understand how someone can deny wrongdoing on the part of the former president, based solely on the one specific claim that was investigated by Robert Mueller.

But here’s what I cannot understand:

* Since the Mueller investigation, Trump has been found liable for damages in a civil suit stemming from a sexual assault case which a New York judge has subsequently described as “rape.”

* He has been indicted in New York for 34 financial crimes in which he allegedly inflated the value of his assets to acquire loans and insurance, and deflated the value of the same properties to avoid paying taxes on them.

* He is charged with campaign finance violations for paying hush money to a porn star to cover up a sexual affair in advance of his election to the White House.

(For those keeping score at home, that’s rape, fraud and finance law violations – and we haven’t even left New York yet.)

* He was also indicted in Florida for stealing and concealing classified government documents and refusing to give them back when subpoenaed to do so. Charges include 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act, six felony counts of obstruction of justice and two felony counts of making false statements.

* He was indicted in Washington, D.C., for inciting a violent coup in an attempt to throw out results of the 2020 election and disrupt the certification of the Electoral College vote. Charges include two felony counts of obstructing an official government proceeding, one felony count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one additional felony count of conspiracy.

* And he was indicted in Atlanta, Georgia, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for attempting to encourage election officials to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to win the state’s electoral vote, contrary to the actual outcome of voting in the state. The indictment accuses 19 named defendants of criminal wrongdoing and contains 41 state felony charges. Thirteen of those felonies are assigned to Trump, including but not limited to one count of violating the RICO act, three counts of soliciting a public officer to violate his oath of office, two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery and two counts of making false statements and writings.

So to recap, in addition to the charges that could have come from Mueller, Trump is accused of sexual assault and/or rape, financial fraud, campaign finance violations, stealing classified documents, espionage, fraud against the United States, racketeering, forgery and all manner of lying, false statements and conspiracy. The total is 40 charges in the Florida documents case, 34 in the New York financial records cases, 13 in the Georgia RICO case and four related to January 6. So do the math: 40 + 34 + 13 + 4 = 91.

Now tell me. Who in their right mind believes that the “witch hunt” Trump has been claiming since the Mueller investigation has blossomed over six years into 91 separate charges in three different states alleging crimes ranging from rape to espionage and everything in between? How can anyone believe that the Democratic Party – or any organization that is “out to get” Donald Trump – is organized enough to pull this off?

It’s a crime wave that rivals some of the most notorious criminal enterprises in American history. It's hard to believe that anybody could put together a broad, all-encompassing plan like this over a six-year period, especially not a political party that has trouble just passing a bill. I doubt that even Trump – the career grifter and con man – could put together a strategy this effective to destroy a political enemy.

So now that he is running for president again and claiming that he has done nothing wrong, it begs the question, “If this is all a witch hunt, as Trump claims, just how many witches are we actually hunting?” Who knew there were so many witches living among us, and how naïve does someone have to be to believe in them? I mean, maybe you don't believe all of it or part of, but can any reasonable person not believe any of it?

I admitted up front that I was a little naïve, but compared to the naïvete of Trump supporters, I’m apparently the smartest man in the room.

A precedent is a precedent until it isn’t

Several years ago, if memory serves, I was talking politics with a couple of co-workers, most likely over a pitcher or two of cold, foamy brew in a noisy bar somewhere. I can’t remember where, or when, or with whom that conversation took place.

That was back when you could actually talk politics without raising your voice, threatening to kill somebody or using the words “woke,” “triggered,”  “Communist” or “own the libs.”

I do remember making the statement, “One of the most important things a president has to do – which most voters never think about – is appoint judges to the federal courts.” Presidents come and go every four or eight years, I think I said, “but federal judges get their jobs for life, and possess unlimited power to affect the way the rest of us live our lives.”

I also posited the belief that the country could endure four years of a bad president, assuming that he or she was surrounded by good people to actually run the government and a Congress that was willing to help, but could not so easily survive controversial rulings by an out-of-control judiciary bent on pressing its own social and political agenda.       

Fast forward a number of years and look where we find ourselves today. The Supreme Court of the United States is issuing ruling after ruling that strip us of our long-established rights and effectively make it legal to discriminate against people who they consider different from the “norm.” In the court’s majority view, the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness only applies to straight, white, evangelical Christians who vote Republican, treat women like chattel, love guns, hate history, worship a twice-impeached and recently indicted crime boss from Florida who’s running for president (again) and believe that children begin to lose their value as soon as they leave the womb … sort of like what happens to your new car as soon as you drive it off the lot.

In a few of their recent rulings, the conservative justices have gutted the Voting Rights Act, nullified affirmative action, overturned Roe v. Wade and upheld the right of a web designer to refuse to serve gay people, even though the “case” the court was considering didn’t really exist. Amateur web designer Lorie Smith had asked the court to grant her the right under the First Amendment to refuse service to gay and lesbian couples due to her Christian religious beliefs, but Smith had not been hired to make a wedding website for a same-sex couple and, in fact, has never made a single wedding website for anybody – gay or straight.

In other words, the highest court in America is doing what no court has ever done before – ignoring decades of precedent in order to apply its own political and philosophical beliefs to the laws that govern America, and even taking cases that aren’t really cases just to press its conservative position.

There’s a reason that a precedent is called a precedent. It refers to decisions that have “preceded” or gone before. According to its definition, a precedent is “a principle or rule established in a previous legal case relevant to a court … when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts.” Our legal system generally views a precedent as binding or persuasive, and it aims to apply similar facts to yield similar and predictable outcomes when making legal decisions.

The principle by which judges are bound to precedents is known as “stare decisis,” a Latin phrase which means “to stand in the things that have been decided.” At least, it used to mean that before the worst president in the history of the United States appointed three young conservatives to the bench, and they have joined the other right wingers in throwing precedents out the window.

I’m reminded of the confirmation hearings for two of the justices – Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – who proclaimed under questioning that prior cases such as Roe v. Wade were “settled law” and that precedent should be upheld, then turned around and voted the opposite way when the first opportunity arose. Clarence Thomas, who was one of six justices to vote down affirmative action, famously credited the policy with being “critical to minorities and women in this society” in a 1983 speech. “God only knows where I would be today” if not for the legal principles of affirmative action, Thomas said then.

The hypocrisy of the SCOTUS majority is way off the charts. And I haven’t even mentioned the billionaire donors who have been bribing justices with luxury vacations, houses, school tuition and other perks that somehow never get reported on the recipients’ financial disclosure forms, or the fact that there are currently no ethics rules for justices … and no desire by the chief justice to apply any. It’s a frightening scenario that may get worse before it gets better.

I stand by my belief that the two most important tools a president possesses are a hand to sign bills and a good quality pen, but that his most important job is appointing judges who will respect and honor decades of precedent while correctly interpreting the Constitution and the law. Unfortunately, we handed that job to a narcissistic white power buffoon in 2016 and the consequences have been devastating for our country, with many more years of damage still to come.

For the record, Clarence Thomas is the oldest justice at age 75 and Joseph Alito is 73. Chief Justice John Roberts is 68 and the three conservatives appointed by Donald Trump are all in their 50s, so all are young enough to serve another 15-20 years. That means until a liberal president can get a couple of appointments to the court we’re stuck with what we have. That’s something you might want to think about the next time you vote for a president.

Missouri, show me the way

Leave it to Missouri – the “Show Me State” – to show us the way of the future.

This week, Republicans in the Missouri House of Representatives voted to defund all of the state’s public libraries as part of its proposed state budget, and forwarded the bill to the GOP-controlled Senate, where chances of passage were, frankly, less than certain.

Even so, you have to ask yourself, why would they do such a thing?

It seems that last year, the Legislature passed a law removing certain material it considered “too sexually explicit” for school libraries, which upset the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association. So the ACLU, on behalf of these librarians, responded by challenging last year’s law, and that led the lawmakers to cut off all library funding … period.

According to reports, the House spent more than eight hours debating various budget cuts that also included funding for diversity initiatives, childcare and pre-kindergarten programs. The Republican Budget Committee chairman allegedly proposed cutting library aid as retribution for the ACLU lawsuit, which contends that a bill to ban more than 300 books from school libraries is unconstitutional. Many of the books include LGBTQ characters or racial justice themes.

Democrats, of course, supported the libraries, arguing that Republicans are just angry that their authority is being challenged, and are taking out their wrath on the state’s libraries. Apparently, it’s not nice to piss off your lawmakers in Missouri.

All of this raises some interesting questions, such as will this happen in other states where books are being banned, and why stop with public libraries?

I mean, c’mon, Missouri, you can do better than this. After you’re finished raping your state’s libraries, why not turn your attention to motion pictures that address these same taboo subjects? I think maybe you should close all of the theaters in the state. And television programs that address said subjects? Why not black out all of your TV channels? Sporting events? What if the Cardinals or Chiefs gave away rainbow towels or mugs on National Diversity Day. Shouldn’t these teams be suspended from playing their games?

And don't even get me started on the internet.

Seriously, if defunding libraries is the answer to banning books, I can see a lot more opportunities for the Missouri Legislature to shut down other forms of entertainment that threaten to illustrate life in the real world in 2023 while the state marches relentlessly into the past. It’s all there waiting for you, Missouri. Don’t pass up a chance to score big.

That time when Wild Wonderful West Virginia became the Wild Wild West … and other sad stories

Picture this scenario: It’s a little after 3 on a Friday afternoon in political science class at State University – the last class of the day. In the back row, a disgruntled student named Carl is restless in his seat. He isn’t interested in today’s lecture – which he considers nothing more than liberal propaganda – and he can’t make himself sit still.

At 3:17 p.m., Carl has had enough. He stands up slowly, pulls out the Glock 9 pistol he had concealed in his jacket pocket and starts shooting at his fellow students. As bullets fly around the room and people run for cover, another student named Jamaal ducks behind a desk, pulls out his semi-automatic weapon and starts shooting back at Carl.

As the firefight continues, a campus policeman hears the shots and rushes into the room. The first person he sees is Jamaal, the good guy, with a gun in his hand, firing off round after round, so he shoots him dead. Carl, the bad guy, turns to his right, shoots the cop, and continues killing students until everyone is either wounded or dead. Then he blows out his brain with one last shot.

Could this actually happen?

Sadly, yes, under the new campus carry law passed by the West Virginia Legislature’s super majority Republicans and signed by the Republican governor.

As reported in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, the Campus Self-Defense Act would allow a person who holds a concealed firearm permit to carry a concealed pistol or revolver at institutions of higher education. Supporters of the bill say it increases individual rights and has the potential to make campuses safer by deterring mass shootings and placing legally armed citizens in positions to potentially stop active shooters.

(Those “legally armed citizens” include good guy shooters like Jamaal in the hypothetical scenario I described above.)

“If you have a hardened facility, in other words, if you have people who are able to defend themselves,” said Delegate Bill Ridenour, R-Jefferson, “then the chances of somebody trying to do a school shooting, trying to do a terrorist operation, are going to be vastly reduced.”

Opponents decried the “good guy with a gun” argument, contending that the bill will make campuses less safe. They also argue that the legislation could have unintended consequences, including increasing gun accidents and related injuries, creating a toxic and fearful learning environment, and contributing to a growing mental health crisis for college students.

(For “unintended consequences,” see the scenario above.)

Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, said he believes the bill also would stifle freedom of expression and speech on the state’s college campuses. “Are you going to attend a controversial speaker series if you know guns are everywhere?” Fluharty asked. “Are you going to participate, as a student, in controversial subject matter if you know guns are everywhere? We’ve become so obsessed with gun culture, we’ve now started the gun curriculum here in West Virginia, where students will be worried day-in and day-out who’s packing heat?”

The governor is expected to sign the bill. Only time will tell what effect this new law has on college enrollment in the state, and how long it will be before the first “unintended consequence” hits the national media.

So is campus carry a good idea? You be the judge.

Religious freedom act

Here’s another piece of frightening legislation making its way through the Legislature.  House Bill 3042 – the Religious Freedom Act – passed the House of Delegates by 86-12 and is headed toward the Senate, where Republicans hold a 31-3 majority.

This bill should more appropriately be called the “Making It Legal to Discriminate Act,” because that’s precisely what it does. By providing the cloak of religion to almost everything, it makes it legal to discriminate against gays, transgender individuals, non-Christians, minorities and virtually anybody who is not a white evangelical Christian conservative Republican.    

In its simplest form, the bill says that “no state action may burden a person’s exercise of freedom of religion.” That’s funny, because I thought we already had that protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The hidden objective, according to opponents of the bill, is to make it legal to strike down local nondiscrimination laws and to create situations where religion is used as cover to refuse services to certain groups of West Virginians. There also is concern that the bill could be used to strike down immunization laws.

“It’s about Morgantown’s nondiscrimination ordinance that we’re very proud of,” said Delegate Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, in opposing the law. “This bill is also about medical care. What if a gay man comes in for an HIV pill? Can they refuse to fulfill that prescription? If there’s a rape victim, can they be denied emergency birth control? Or can a pregnant woman who is miscarrying be denied an abortion, even though it’s the safest medical alternative, because it goes against that doctor’s religious views?”

Supporters of the bill say it provides a guide for the courts in handling these issues. That’s just what we need ... more politically appointed judges making determinations best left to doctors, educators and other qualified professionals.

(For proof of judicial activism, see Court, U.S. Supreme.)

Personal income tax

You’ve probably read or heard about the effort to reduce or eliminate a number of taxes in the state, including the personal income tax. See if you can guess who benefits most from a reduction in personal income tax? (If you said “the people with the greatest incomes,” congratulations. Get yourself a pepperoni bun. I’ll buy.) And who is the person with the greatest income in West Virginia? Why, it’s our governor, I believe. Well played, Gov. Hutt. You’re gonna get yourself a big tax break.

Now tell me how we’re going to replace 25% of the state’s revenue once these taxes are eliminated. I’ll wait.  

Forward into the past

And finally, here’s one you might not have heard about. While West Virginia ranks 50^th in the nation as the least healthy state, the House of Delegates has approved a bill that would allow indoor smoking areas at certain resort areas and gaming facilities at existing historic resort hotels like the Greenbrier. More smoking, yeah, that’s exactly what we need.

(A special mention of the Greenbrier, owned by the governor. What a coincidence.)

HB 3341 would allow what the bill calls “cigar bars” — indoor areas designated for smoking not just cigars but other tobacco purchased on the premises or elsewhere.

“This bill is mainly for the benefit of old, rich white guys,” Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said. “I’m more concerned about the people that are working for those rich white guys. They’re going to have to breathe in secondhand smoke for eight-hour shifts, 10-hour shifts.”

And with that, West Virginia continues its unrelenting journey forward into the past.

Good-bye Twitter; could Zuckerbook be next?

I’ve just finished scrolling my Facebook news feed for this morning and here – for the most part – is a summary of the subjects I saw:

*  Lost animals,

*  Found animals,

*  Cute animals,

*  Stranded and/or rescued animals,

*  Music and musicians that I follow,

*  Bucket list travel sites and photos of beautiful Scotland,

*  Food (either recipes or photos of somebody's breakfast/lunch/dinner),

*  WVU, FSU and Fairmont Senior sports,

* Wordle results,

*  White House press releases,

*  Something illegal that a Republican did,

*  Something stupid that Marge Greene said, and

*  A few other odds and ends posted by people who are still my friends.

Apparently, for a variety of reasons, I have blocked, unfriended or snoozed everything else that used to show up here every day. Mostly, I have decided there is enough anxiety and aggravation in my life without inviting more to squeeze in from the interwebs. It isn’t that I don’t have TIME for social media, because as a retired Covid recluse I’ve got nothing BUT time, but instead that my interest in social media seems to be waning.

So it made me stop and think: I have a whole stack of books I haven’t read, including four that I got for Christmas, one more that I pre-ordered for April and several Kurt Vonnegut novels I'm trying to catch up with. It seems that reading these books (and then buying more) would be a more prudent use of my time than arguing with some under-educated pseudo-Christian nut bag about whether you can impeach Joe Biden just because you don’t like his face.

Sadly, I haven’t written anything in weeks. This is my first shieldWALL essay since last September, and there are some short stories banging around in my head, asking to be let out.

I also subscribe to several video streaming services, and there are countless movies, TV shows and documentaries that I haven’t seen and dozens more I wouldn’t mind seeing again. And maybe then again.

I already deactivated my Twitter account shortly after new owner Elon Musk reopened his blue bird platform to liars, Nazis, conspiracy theorists, election deniers, anti-semites, fake news bots, propagandists, Russian trolls and Donald J. Trump. It has been more than two months since I had a Twitter account and I haven’t missed it for a single day. Now I’m wondering if I can do without Facebook, too.

In reality, I doubt that I will exit this forum altogether. I still want to see those cute puppies and sports stories and cool photos of historic Edinburgh and the Scottish highlands and, of course, I want to keep up with the activities of my small number of friends. My point is, I think there’s room for literary diversity in my life, so I’m going to give it a try. Reading and writing seem like good starting points, and if I try real hard, I can find a multitude of things to do instead of spending my days helping Mark Zuckerberg live his best life.

After all, he isn’t doing anything to help me with mine.